Vocational trucks are well known vehicles used to transport cargo across land and over long distances. Such trucks include dump trucks, tractor-trailers, semis, 18-wheelers or the like, and typically include a “tractor” housing the engine of the vehicle, and the operator cabin. The tractor typically terminates in a fifth wheel or hitch for temporarily attaching a “trailer” which is used to house the cargo being transported, or in the case of dump truck, a hydraulic assembly to raise and lower a dump box or bed at the rear of the vehicle. The vocational trucks are sized as to meet traffic laws associated with standard highway dimensions and in so doing are able to transport cargo practically anywhere a highway is available. This is in contrast to a rail which is only able to transport cargo from fixed locations along its track.
While effective, and indispensable in modern commerce, the fact that the vocational trucks are used on standard highways requires such trucks to provide safety features similar to or exceeding many of those required of typical passenger vehicles such as cars. For example, vocational trucks include headlights, tail lights, turn signals, rearview mirrors, hazard lights, fog lights, and many other features making the vehicle both more visible to oncoming traffic, and increasing the visibility afforded to the driver both in a forward direction, rearward direction and peripherally.
While headlights are certainly one option for increasing the visibility and sight of the vehicle, it is not a straightforward matter of simply making the headlights larger or with a greater lumen output. This is due to a number of factors. One factor limiting the size of the headlights or lighting assemblies are the traffic laws under which the vocational trucks have to operate. For example, for years, vehicles have been required to include “low beam” and “high beam” lights. The low beam lights are used when there is oncoming traffic and essentially reduce and redirect a light output so as not to generate significant glare to the oncoming motorist. When there is no oncoming traffic, the high beams can be used to redirect and/or maximize the lumen output and thus visibility and sight of the driver.
Another factor limiting the size of the overall lighting assembly is the width of a standard lane on a highway. Such lanes are of a fixed width and thus so are the maximum widths available to passenger vehicles and vocational trucks. However, as such vehicles need significant space to accommodate the engine and drive transmissions; a relatively small portion of the vehicle is left available for the provision of the lighting assemblies.
This is particularly true in the case of modern vocational trucks which have an increased need for air intake. The increased need for air intake may be necessitated by such things as improved emissions requirements, aesthetics, or any other motivating factor of the vehicle manufacturer. For example, exhaust gas recirculation and other emissions reduction techniques increase the need for incoming air. Accordingly, if the requirements are increased, so too must the space or area afforded to the grill, louvers or other devices for taking in such air. As this grill area becomes larger, the space available for the lighting assemblies becomes even more limited.
Given these competing interests, the vocational truck industry is left with unsatisfactory solutions at the moment. On the one hand, the visibility and sight of the vehicles should be maximized, but at the same time, such vehicles need to comply with modern federal, state and local traffic laws, while providing the vehicle with sufficient air intake to meet the design criteria of the manufacturer.